9 New Books We Recommend This Week

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Jan. 4, 2018

There’s good news and bad news on this week’s list of recommended books. Well, almost exclusively bad news, at least in terms of subject matter. These picks cover the devastation of tsunamis, earthquakes and wildfires; the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918; mass extinctions; the potential for nuclear annihilation. Even the work of fiction included here is a fantasy about imminent catastrophe. The good news is the eloquent and haunting way in which these books are written.

THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE:Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner,by Daniel Ellsberg. (Bloomsbury, $30.) When the Cold War ended in 1991, nuclear weapons vanished from the minds of most Americans. But Ellsberg, the former Defense Department analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers, sounds an impassioned alarm, warning that the dangers of nuclear conflict remain.

MEGAFIRE:The Race to Extinguish a Deadly Epidemic of Flame,by Michael Kodas. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28.) An account of the misguided history and dire results of America’s wildfire management policy that also captures the Sisyphean struggles of the men and women who battle blazes for a living.

WINTER OF ICE AND IRON,by Rachel Neumeier. (Saga, $29.99.) The plot of Neumeier’s epic fantasy of magic and political intrigue feels familiar, but her writing has a spare, haunting quality that makes up for it. The characters hook; this is more satisfying comfort food than most.